This is the third in a series of articles in which author Steven Erikson deconstructs, paragraph by paragraph, an excerpt from his most recent novel Forge of Darkness.
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There was but one place and one time when the gods of colour withdrew, vanished from the ken of mortals, and that place, that time, was death.
From the previous paragraph’s describing the coming of death, we come to it directly in this one. It’s earned the right to stand alone, because in this section, death is very important to what follows. Without the natural progressions set up in the previous paragraph, this one would lose its impact. Also, in following syntactical rules (“one place and one time” to “that time, that place”) I reinforce, hopefully, my control over what I’m writing. What would happen if I inversed the second set: that time, that place? If I had simply included this line in the preceding paragraph, I would also risk a diminishment of its effect. What we’re looking at here is control of pace, making use of the natural breaks readers make moving from one paragraph to the next. But this is a different level of manipulating pace: the larger scale for this relates, as I’ve mentioned before, to overall sentence pattern. In general, the pace of this opening to this section is slow and measured despite its alarming content. Note also that we’re still not anchored in a setting, but there is something of the plodding to this pace thus far, combined with the occasional stutter-step. Bear that in mind (because, you see, I know what K is doing right now though I’ve yet to reveal it to the reader; I know where he is, and more to the point, I know what he is looking at).
Kadaspala worshiped colours. They were the gifts of light; and in their tones, heavy and light, faint and rich, was painted all of life.
This line concludes K’s thesis. If separated out from all that surrounds it, this paragraph sounds almost pastoral. “Worship” is a positive notion. “Gifts” are always welcome. And, since K is a painter, he uses his profession, his obsession, in his descriptions. Amidst everything else, this paragraph is an island of peace, and so it was meant to be. You need to draw a spiritual breath, away from the oppression established thus far. But of course, it’s a small island.
When he thought of an insensate world, made of insensate things, he saw a world of death, a realm of incalculable loss, and that was a place to fear. Without eyes to see and without a mind to make order out of chaos, and so bring comprehension, such a world was where the gods went to die. Nothing witnessed and so, nothing renewed. Nothing seen and so, nothing found. Nothing outside and so, nothing inside.
We leave the island immediately and return to “death.” Bound to religious belief there is fear (for K.), and here we are given the nature of what K. fears. Having merged internal and external landscapes, K asserts that, in effect, he (the cognizant mind, the seeing eye) is necessary to maintain the living world. The core of this is central to his greatest fear concerning the cult of Mother Dark, and the stealing of Light that it seems to promise. Note the last three lines and the balance of syllables in “witnessed/renewed,” “see/found” and “outside/inside.” Shifting the order would have imbalanced these three sentences as a unit. Once again, rhythm is established through repetition. This is a poetic device but it works well in fiction, too. The mind likes repetition. This paragraph offers up the terror of absolute negation, and as an argument, at this point it has nowhere else to go. With the last line, we’ve descended into oblivion. Accordingly…
Image Credit
Photograph published with permission of author
Recent Steven Erikson Articles:
- Deconstructing Fiction (For Writers and Readers): Excerpt Deconstructed (8)
- Deconstructing Fiction (For Writers and Readers): Excerpt Deconstructed (7)
- Deconstructing Fiction (For Writers and Readers): Excerpt Deconstructed (6)
- Deconstructing Fiction (For Writers and Readers): Excerpt Deconstructed (5)
- Deconstructing Fiction (For Writers and Readers): Excerpt Deconstructed (4)
Hi Keemosabi,
What I loved best about this excerpt was Kadaspala’s description of his gods of colour. As artists (you and hopefully me), I can relate. One must reduce everything to contrast in hue, tint, tone or shade, value, and intensity. As Monet saw the world around him, a painter has to ultimately simplify all visual details to light versus dark, intense versus dilute, textured versus non-textured, opaque versus translucent, and distinct versus indistinct. In many ways, I see your writing in the same light. You paint your story using variations in paragraph size, sentence length, phrasing, and syllables, contrast in sounds – both hard and soft, repetition and rhythm, complementary systems and cadence, voice and vocabulary. Like Van Gogh, your literary ‘brush strokes’ are bold, forceful, and unapologetic. And the Kadaspala piece is truly a masterpiece of writing.
Thank you for it.
Tonto
Whoa! Thanks so much for this Steven, though I feel like I should have just forked over a sack of cash for this level of instruction (Deconstruction? Well, some sort of ‘struction’).
I’m curious about something: how much of the construction of your work would you say comes from the subconscious? The use of echoing hard consonants, the patterns of repetition, and the like?
How much of it comes from being inside the character’s head, and thus naturally flowing out in a certain manner, and how much of it is it the writer working as the mad craftsman, for you?
At any rate, can’t wait to get my hands on Forge of Darkness (Recently finished The Crippled God, and thank you for finally letting us inside Tavore’s head!)
Marsh
Hello Marsh
This originally was written as a single piece, but for length constraints it’s been broken up here. I close the piece by saying that, once the rules of narrative structure are learned (and you learn by writing, and by reading and deconstructing), then most of it becomes, if not instinctive, then second nature. The real value lies in when something’s not quite working right, as you can then go back and deconstruct your work, and find out what’s lacking.
When it comes to language, however, it’s all down to rhythm, and then considering the effects said rhythms create in the head of the reader, and once you consider that, you begin to comprehend how you can manipulate those effects in the way you want to. I know, it sounds crass, not to mention presumptuous, but it’s an integral element of the storyteller’s art, and indeed, the storyteller’s responsibility to the reader/audience. In other words, you need to know the effect(s) your writing has, and you need to know if those are the effects you intended — and if not, what went wrong? And, how do you get back to getting it right? This comes down to being as mindful as hell about what you’re up to. It’s very dangerous to be lazy with respect to the implications of what you write.
As an example, I’ve just finished Mark Lawrence’s second book (King of Thorns), and, much as in the first one, we’re witness to a sharp writing talent, very much in the Glen Cook Black Company style of Dark Fantasy. The story is intriguing, well told, and often displays scintillating and pithy use of language. But in the end, what lies behind the story? We get extremely graphic violence, and on occasion appalling cruelty, including flat-out genocide, and through it all we’re asked to side with the main character, all resting upon the flimsy foundation of vengeance. More to the point, the very notion of redemption seems to be deliberately rejected again and again. In other words, this is a nihilistic vision, one that ends in a pit of history repeated, despair, and ultimate meaninglessness. It’s a nightmare vision of reality, where compassion itself is but a tool to an end. I came away feeling unclean and disturbingly manipulated by a talent that seems to have rejected humanity.
For all that, I’m sure the books will do very well indeed. Not sure what that says about readers these days. The essential difference I see between Lawrence and Glen Cook, is that Glen Cook understands compassion (not with a cold, calculating eye), and for all the darkness in Cook’s Black Company, both the author and his principal character (Croaker) understand the value of honest feeling. Lawrence … I’m not sure yet. Even his hero employs a formidable intellect to savage the virtues of genuine, necessarily complicated and ambivalent, feeling, and the contempt for those virtues drips on every page.
Is it condescending to note that he seems young? Who knows, maybe we were all there once. For me, it took more than few slaps of anguish in my own life to shake me out of my complacency regarding the portrayal of violence for its own sake, and from that, to acquire a growing aversion to reveling in it. The cold, psychopathic hero is really starting to wear on me, to be honest. It feels cheap, like a cheat aspiring to some twisted vision of coolness.
Anyway, glad you enjoyed The Malazan Book of the Fallen. And by all means, consider this an invitation to continue the conversation … it seems awfully quiet on these posts of mine. Perhaps, as Lawrence might note, I’ve become obsolete.
cheers
SE
Hey Steve,
I feel I need to address the ‘obsolete’ comment first. I’m sure it was in jest, but I think the lack of comments comes more from intimidation than anything. I think that there are some folk out there who read your deconstruction and probably think that being that thoughtful is far above them. That, or they just don’t believe that a Fantasy Author would put that much thinking into their work. Bullshit, of course. But, hasn’t that always been an issue with Fantasy and Sci/Fi?
Now, I haven’t read Mr. Lawrence’s novels, but I am familiar with the Black Company. To me, it seems as if it all comes down to consequence. Because the narrative is from Croaker’s POV, who is compassionate (Which makes for an interesting contrast, when held up to the majority of his peers) Cook is able to bring that compassion to the reader. Croaker is aware of the consequences and Cook shows them to us. I believe, by book three, it’s just Croaker and few left from the company. So, despite their ‘badass coolness’ the audience gets the impression that a true price has been paid.
Does it seem crass, that we as writers are using language to manipulate the audience? It all comes down the finished work. I remember reading the Da Vinci Code, coming to the end, and feeling like I was manipulated into taking on the author’s sentiment. That was crass, using narrative to drag the reader over some invisible line that the Author had drawn in the sand.
But, I think, therein lies the problem.
I was discussing my novel (which I think I’ve been working on for an age now!) with a friend, explaining to them how important I felt it was to write towards a theme and not to a lesson, and they came back with ‘Yeah, but you have to write to a point, right? You have to write about an overall lesson.’ I feel that a lot of authors out there come up with some overall lesson (that of course we need to learn) and build everything, their plot, characters and such, towards that. Instead of say, working towards your character’s individual lessons and letting the reading come to their own conclusions. It’s like World War II; did we, as the Allies. learn the same lessons as the Axis? I’m sure to some degree, but I’ve never really met two people who’ve gone through the same experience and came back with the same conclusion. Why should fiction be any different?
In the case of Mr. Lawrence, from what you’ve said, it seems that he’s got a specific worldview and his ‘hero’ is the catalyst of his point. It also sounds like he’s playing out his own revenge fantasies, albeit highly exaggerated (At least, I would hope the genocide is).
And yes, he may think its condescending to note that he seems young, but I think the shoe fits. I can remember, as a younger man, writing short stories filled with meaningless violence. It takes age to fully understand consequence. Hell, for me, it usually takes a good while of percolation to understand anything!
I think you hit the nail on the head, when you say the cold hero is wearing thin. It takes build and resolution to make a good anti-hero. I always use Max (From the Mad Max movies) as an example. True, he becomes a stone cold killer, but we get to see his whole fall from grace, which leads him to this dark path, but eventually we get to see his redemption. Shit, I can still remember my friends complaining when he saved a bunch of kids at the end of the last flick. Complaining…that he saved kids…
But, maybe it all comes down to the audience. Some of us want our fiction (no matter the format) to emulate real life, complete with consequence and moral ambiguity. Others seem to want a story that lies on one side of the line or the other. Black and White, they are appalled by all shades of Grey.
Sorry if this meandered too much (replying while on my lunch break)
Marsh.
P.S. I bet that there are a lot more people reading this then you may think. After reading the deconstruction, I have to admit that I was somewhat intimidated and hesitant to even post a comment. I’m glad I did. Thanks again Steve.